An octopus (octopus vulgaris) lifts one of its tentacles in his bassin at the zoo in Basel, Switzerland

What is killing the octopus of Vila Nova de Gaia? That question has obsessed the Portuguese city, located just across the Douro river from Porto, since Jan. 2, when 1,100 lbs. (500 kg) of dead octopus were found on a 1.8-mile (3 km) stretch of local beach.

The following day, another 110 lbs (50 kg) appeared; today there was just one expired creature. "It's very strange that so many should be killed, and in such a confined area," says Nuno Oliveira, director of the Gaia Biological Park, a nature refuge on the outskirts of Vila Nova de Gaia. "There's nothing in the scientific literature for this kind of mass mortality among octopus."

Twelve hundred pounds is a lot of dead cephalopod, especially when no one seems to know for sure what killed them. Local biologists have ruled out pollution or contamination because no other species were affected.

And although some suggest that perhaps a boat, illegally fishing the multilegged creatures, threw them overboard in a panicked attempt to avoid detection, that possibility also seems unlikely. "The sea has been very rough," says Oliveira. "No one has been out fishing for days."

This small tiger has lived only in Sumatra for a million years, making it hard to escape human expansion. Most survivors dwell in reserves, but about 100 live beyond the borders of the protected areas.

Golden-Headed LangurVietnamNumber remaining: fewer than 70All but wiped out, this primate was placed under protection in 2000. It is still in grave danger, but in 2003 its numbers rose for the first time in decades.

“Could this Chinese Year of the Tiger be the last one with actual tigers still afoot in the world’s wild?”--Bill Marsh, The New York Times, March 6, 2010http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/weekinreview/07marsh.html

For every peer we've ever had—we've slain,Enslaved, diminished—well, we have their plans.The charismatic megafauna wanesAnd yet we've archived what they were. Life's spanExtends quite well: magnetic drives, by code.In symbol... signs emerge until the twoAre one. Both data, matter: simply modesOr monads, swimming ignorant in brew,In petri dishes we've devised to scopeThe evidence of God in every cell.In every scrap of living parts we hopeTo find the proof that we are what we tellOurselves we seek: that we are what we saw—The savior human! One of nature's laws.